Bitcoin Loses Steam; Satoshi’s BTC Reach Value of $20b

After touching the remarkable $20,000 range on Sunday, Bitcoin’s price started rolling back the same day, at first slowly and then faster throughout Monday and Tuesday. On Tuesday alone, Bitcoin lost nearly $1,000 in the course of an hour – a drop that followed the decline of CME’s Bitcoin futures only two days after their launch.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) launched the Bitcoin futures contracts on Sunday, when the price of the earliest 2018 contract was originally set at $19,500. At the time of launch, the contract spiked beyond $20,000 but has subsequently declined to $18,920. According to the Guardian, all 2018 contracts have followed suit, dropping down below their opening price. The most popular contract was the January option while contracts for March, June, and February received less attention

Market Turns Bearish

The price of Bitcoin is nearing its last week’s value as the market trends shift and turn bearish. During the past 7 days, the lowest Bitcoin’s USD price dropped was $16,228.00 on early Thursday morning while the highest price point was hit on Sunday afternoon, when Bitcoin touched a value of $20,042.90. Currently, the price is near $16,800 and changing faster.

Our market charts show that the trading volume remained near $15 billion for most of last week but started growing faster after Tuesday, hinting that the price decline might be tied to a bigger selling wave. The volume has been increasing since early morning, showing pronounced interest and suggesting there is room for faster changes. Currently, it is at $19.1 billion and rising while the market cap is at $283 billion.

Our technical analysis shows that the market is pro-sell, with 8 out of 12 moving averages and 6 out of 12 oscillators sending a selling signal. The SMA 100 is still over the SMA 200 on this time-frame, showing there is less resistance to the upside, and the RSI and CCI are sending overselling signals, hinting that there is still room for a change.

At times like these, it’s important to stay on track with longer trend changes as it’s not the first time Bitcoin has made a big bounce back. So, keep watching the price charts closely to see whether bears will keep pushing down.

Satoshi Briefly Becomes World’s 44th Richest Person

In other interesting news, Bitcoin’s mysterious inventor, the man/woman or collective known as Satoshi Nakamoto, for a brief moment became the 44th richest person in the world as estimated by Forbes’ richest list. Namely, as reported by Quartz, as Bitcoin’s price hit a high of $19,771 on Sunday, the total value of Satoshi’s Bitcoin reached $19.4 billion, or just enough to qualify for the 44th spot on the Forbes list and enter the world’s top 50.

Nakamoto’s Bitcoin fortune is estimated to be in the amount of 980,000 Bitcoin that the unidentified “entity” had acquired since the cryptocurrency was launched back in 2009. It is believed that most of these Bitcoins have been gathered from mining the cryptocurrency in the early days when mining was much easier and affordable. His funds, or so is reported, have not been touched for years.

According to Forbes’ official numbers, with Bitcoin’s Sunday value, Nakamoto would have ranked just behind Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, H&M Chairman Stefan Persson, as well as Steve Jobs’ widow Laurene Powell Jobs. Naturally, Nakamoto’s fortune is more prone to changes as Bitcoin’s price fluctuates more dramatically than traditional investments like stocks, but is nevertheless impressive to see an original idea turned into a multi-billion fortune in less than a decade.